Calendar Sanity

I'm in love with 30boxes.com. I don't know why, really. If I had to pin down a reason, it's because until this site, Becca didn't want to enter in all the birthdays and anniversaries she tracks into a computer. Every year I suggested she put it into Outlook or ANYTHING, just get it off paper.

She did what I guess a lot of people do: Every year, manually copy down all the notes and events to the next year's wall calendar/planner. I personally can't do that because my mind is always in "how can I do this on a computer instead" mode since about age 12. Just makes sense to me to have a computer handle remembering the things that repeat.

Plus her fear of computers doesn't help.

In her case, every year, it would get later and later into the year before she had this manual "upload" to the next calendar completed. If you were born between January and April, you might want to consider moving your birthday to about mid-May. Now that she's entered it, she doesn't have to do it next year.

So what did 30boxes have that Outlook didn't? It was a pretty calendar? That's one guess. Was it the fact it shows the forecast automatically on the calendar? Maybe. Was it because it has a natural language entry? ("Mom's Birthday, March 10" becomes a recurring yearly birthday). That's another guess. Text message reminders to her cell phone a day or two before? That's another good guess. I don't know really. Google Calendar could have done all this (maybe without the pretty calendar part?) but she just didn't like it like she liked 30boxes.

If you want to know why she likes it, you probably should ask her. I like it because "she can use it." That's all that matters to me, that a calendar exists that she will actually use.

From the nerd perspective, it even makes me like it a ton. It has the most options, settings, features, you name it, of any calendar I have tried online. It finds MySpace, LiveJournal blog, and shows them on my calendar if I want. It shows Becca's calendar on my calendar (cuz I want!) It shows my Google Calendar on my Calendar. It shows my Twitter.com on my calendar. I can email add @ 30boxes.com with a subject line of "Mom's Birthday, March 10" and it would add that to my calendar.

I donated some cash their way the other day, and received the shirt pictured. And just so you know, I didn't realize I was getting a shirt until after I donated.

If you sign up, and want to watch/stalk me, as always, I'm jeffdiogenes@whatever.